Was there a woman named “R” something? Most of them were “R” something, he said, and then rattled them off: The Radovich, Ratakilova and the Rigoryevna clans and a few more he’d forgotten. No wonder the Russians have never made much of their country—their names are too damned hard to say or spell. I threw some of the old Purple Gang names at him, like Axler, Bernstein, Keywell and Laks, but they were all news to him. He hadn’t read True Crime Magazines since Capone.
“You don’t want to mess with them ferriners,” He said, snipping fast around my ears with a longish pair of scissors. I didn’t dare flinch or disagree.
“Tough bunch, huh?”
“Not just tough but mean bastards. Not all mean lives in your Chicago, son. Small places have a few rotten ones too.”
“You’re pretty sharp, Joe. What do these Russkis do around here? Any of ‘em here for ten years or longer?”
He stopped and snipped his scissors rapid fire, like he was cutting the information out of the air. “No one can say just what they do. They pretend to run a small farm out there, is all, except for a few visitors coming and going. Pretty strange, ‘cause the farm wouldn’t feed the bunch. The Ratakilovas—they’ve been kicking around that long—the other two are pretty recent. Alayna Ratakilova’s queen bee. You’ll find her place due east just off Klaxton road, not that you’d want to visit—big green house and barn.” He flourished the sheet off me and swiveled the chair around so I could admire his work in the mirrors. “Just leave your nuts in the car when you go see her.”
“Thanks, Pop,” I said, admiring myself in the mirror and stepping out of the chair, “but they tend to tag along.”
“Be careful, son. One boy messed with those ferriners and was fished out of the lake. Bad bidness. The bigger lake—we’ve got two, you know. Not many small towns have two.”
I gave Joe a fiver and told him to keep the change. He cut a good head of hair, better than my barber in Wrigleyville. I turned in the doorway and said: “Got a bank in Mattoon?”
“Yep. Two of those, too.” He yanked his thumb to the right. “Down Main two blocks thataway—got enough dough for two banks, son?”
Chapter 35 – Robbing the bank
Mattoon State Bank stood short and shabby across the street from Illinois Central Savings, like a younger sibling envying a successful big brother. I looked up at the blue logo MSB since 1902, and it clicked: “MSB282”— the lettering on the key.
I wasn’t sure what hoops a small town bank would put a guy through to get into his deposit box, but I’d practiced forging Forrester’s signature a few times before I drove down. It had been a talent since I’d successfully penned the supply sergeant’s name to some requisitions back in Korea. I halted my Army forgeries when the sergeant with the familiar “y” loops took a bullet through the heart at Pusan.
If the box were still rented after ten years, I’d need to impersonate a dead man.
The lobby was empty. Two tellers were counting their cash drawers. It was ten minutes to five. Behind a corner desk a fat man in a three-piece brown suit with open vest had his nose in a newspaper. One of the tellers was a thin graying woman with low bosoms like flattened grapefruit. No wedding band. She’d been pretty once, I could tell—a few vestiges remained. With a different hairdo and a fashionable dress she wouldn’t be bad. The thought of lining her up with Sam ran through my mind.
I stepped directly to her window like I was in a rush and slid the key under the bars of her teller cage.
“I’m sorry I’m here at closing,” I said, acting out of breath. “My sister-in-law had to see her dying mother and she dropped me off and I just have to get the family Bible from the box—the poor dear’s been asking for it so it’s a small thing, I guess, she carried it all the way from Russia when she immigrated.”
The teller seemed at ease. She took the key and read the number. “That’s perfectly all right,” she said kindly. “We are here to serve until five o’clock, and I don’t mind staying a bit longer. Let me get your signature card.”
“You’re a peach,” I said, smiling. “And that’s a nice dress you’re wearing.”
She turned her head quickly, blushed and fingered the neckline of the drab blue rag. A light came into her eyes. Some lies are forgiven a man.
She went to a file cabinet behind the teller cage. I started to sweat. The suit was folding up his paper and cleaning chicken bones and apple cores off his desk. He looked at me like I’d just said his sister did it with hobos. The other teller carried his cash drawer to the suit and they both went through a door to the vault.
Old Grapefruits turned and held up a card.
“Oh, dear,” she said apologetically, “This is way overdue. Nearly two years. I’m afraid you’ll need to pay the back rent, Mister—Forrester. I’m so sorry—if the woman is dying, perhaps I could—”
“Oh, that’s all right. I knew it was overdue.” I handed her a twenty and asked her where she’d purchased such a lovely dress, that I wanted to buy my sister one just like it before we went back to St. Louis. She blushed again.
“Why, at Rossiter’s down Main! You really like it?” She was a healthy rose color now and it didn’t look bad on her. Then her cool reserve returned. “I’ll need you to sign this, Mister Forrester, and, if you don’t mind, I need to see identification.”
I signed Jason Forrester like I’d done it all my life and then played the lost wallet routine, clutching at my pockets and looking perplexed.
“Oh, no!” My face drooped and my voice dripped melodramatically. “I must have left my wallet at the motel. What can we do?”
She looked up at me like I was a lost puppy and said proudly: “Don’t you worry—you just come with me. The key and your signature will be sufficient. And take your time. I don’t have anywhere to go. Mister Johnson the manager can wait until you’re finished.”
I thanked God there were pure hearts left in the world. She led me to the back room to a wall of boxes and found number 282. She put in her key and I put in mine. Then she slid out the box and put it on a table and left the room, smoothing her dress and looking contented. I wanted to kiss the old girl.
There were several letters on top. A cinched bag bulged under the letters. I pried the string open and peered into the bag. The insides shifted with a faint rattle and a glint caught my eye.
I shook some of the contents into my palm. Even with the dim lighting in the cramped room, I’d never seen a prettier sparkle.
Diamonds. Large, blue-white, perfect diamonds. Maybe a hundred and all huge. I’m no expert but I know a one-carat rock from a three-carat, and these were the size that guys in love buy instead of a new car.
My head felt light and strange, not quite dizzy, but not on the level either.
I couldn’t leave the diamonds. I might not get by the teller again. Taking them was a big risk, not only from a criminal aspect but targets have been formed from much less. A rubbery moment of decision strung me out some.
I poured the stones back, cinched the bag and slipped it in my inside coat pocket with the letters. The water I was swimming in just got a lot murkier, with stronger undertow.
I sat in the car wishing I’d brought Mr. Daniels along.
I opened the bag again and convinced myself I was indeed carrying a fortune in diamonds. How had Forrester come by so many? Smuggled? From whom? I didn’t know. So that’s why he was killed, not for artifacts. Maybe that’s why the hit men had shelled my office, to see if Nika had found anything, or if I was hiding the glass. Only the Russians could have brought in so many rocks—maybe Forrester had skimmed these along the way, and when they found out it bought him an early grave. Now they wanted them back, and thought Nika might know where they were.
If the Russian Mob owned the gems, then the remnants of the Purples might also be involved. Those kinds of clubs have long memories.
I had to think. Why would Forrester hide diamonds in a little bank in Podunkville—right under the noses of the Russian headquarters?
I remembered the last diary entry: How foolish I was to trust her . . . the goods—put in a very safe place. 1.8 so far. Maybe it will be enough to buy a way out. 1.8—million? Possibly. There were enough diamonds to be in the millions. He couldn’t trust the “R” dame—maybe she was the Queen Bee the barber had mentioned.
Forrester was in a jam, all right: he got killed trying to get out. He lost his head—literally. Maybe he was skimming to buy off somebody or buy his own freedom. He might have been forced to play delivery boy from Russia or China, and if Boyce was involved then drugs were the reason. A lot of high quality glass is a good way to transfer funds without any records. Diamonds for cocaine; glass for snow.
It was beginning to make sense, but pieces were still missing. The “R” woman probably had the answers. How could I get next to the ring? I couldn’t stroll into the headquarters of the commie mafia with ties to Detroit’s underworld and the Bernstein brothers with treasure they were ready to kill for. I had to stash the loot somewhere; my car wasn’t safe.
A drug store was open down the block where I bought a mailing pouch and stamps. I hurriedly addressed the pouch to my office on Addison and sealed the diamonds, less one, up tight. Then I made sure no one was watching and dropped the pouch in a mailbox. I tried without success to relax. I figured I could flash the single diamond at the Russians if I got squeezed. They wouldn’t kill me if they thought I had the diamonds hidden.
Russian operation headquartered from Mattoon explained a lot of things—including why Boyce and the Ice Widow were married here.
I checked my .45 and waited. When it got pitch black I steered my Buick east toward the Ratakilova farm. I wasn’t sure how I’d approach the place, so I needed to drive by and check the lay of the land, but I had to be careful doing it. They’d killed for the diamonds at least once.
It was humid. The air was full of sweet onion aroma from the fields surrounding Mattoon. Klaxton Road teed off the main highway a mile out. I killed the headlights well ahead of the turn and slowly came to the intersection. The first place on the right was a monstrous Dutch farmhouse with a pole barn in back. It all looked deserted.
This is a snakepit, son. Don’t take any chances.
I rolled past a quarter mile and pulled under an umbrella of giant willows just off the shoulder of the road. I put two extra clips in my pocket, got out, and quietly shut the door.
Stealthily following a gully, I made my way back toward the house. From this side I made out a glow at a small barn window. An open side door revealed two cars inside. The house was dark and framed in shadows that fell in my direction, giving me a place to hide. I stepped from the brush and crept across a field to the side of the house.
Keeping to the shadows, I followed a driveway that led to the barn. The moon shone across the worn ground. I’d need to cross to a window at the far side of the barn. I was about to risk it when a cigarette glowed at the opposite corner of the barn. The barn door opened and a large guy walked over to the smoker. When both men went back inside the barn, I looked around and stole over to the near wall of the barn.
Peering through the corner of the window, I saw six people seated in a semi-circle, their backs to me, about twenty feet away. At least a dozen more sat to the right of the six. One against eighteen. Not even good odds in Jersey. I didn’t need Dad to tell me that much.
Chapter 36 Death was everywhere
One man paced and jabbered in Russian, but I couldn’t get a clear look at his face. Nyet was about the only word I recognized, one he repeated three times. Then he spoke my name. I’d recognize that in any language.
A woman stood and spoke out in a gravelly voice. Her body was coiled, like she’d been losing the argument. Maybe she was losing in Russian, and that’s why she started speaking English. I pulled my Colt. It gave me comfort just holding it.
“I say we wait for them,” she nearly shouted. “Vettski and Yefimitch will bring the detective, son of our old enemy—we can force him to tell us where diamonds are. This is what I say. Have you forgotten your place, Peter Boyotovich? You think to shirk your position by changing name to Boyce?”
These are the ones, son. The ones I was after. You must have help. Leave and return later.
Just then a silver-haired jasper stood and faced the woman. I could see part of his face; not in the roster that Nika had borrowed. He was fifty-ish with a deep tan and a high hairline, and he wore an expensive suit. “I have not forgotten, Alayna,” he said. “I have not forgotten that the father would not talk, so why do you think the son will? I have not forgotten how you seduced Jason Forrester and jeopardized our brotherhood and commerce. I have not forgotten how you had Little B killed, and Hovard executed, and cut up the Phillips woman, or how our loyal comrade went to prison for your crime—or that you pickle the skulls of your victims to hold your power by fear. Nor have I forgotten that you have yet to recover the diamonds, which we would have done if you had not followed your impetuous rage with Forrester. And you should not forget that your nephew—Viktor—was killed by this Angel Man detective, who will not be so easy to fool again.”
Peter Boyce. It was all falling into place. Much more than falling into place. Dad was right—this group, maybe one of these mugs here, was responsible for my father’s murder. But which one? I tried to ask Dad’s voice but no answer came.
The impact of seeing the nest of killers stunned me. Hot revenge crept up my scalp. It was all I could do to resist barging in and drilling the bitch and as many filthy Reds as I could. No wonder small towns had no commies—they were all here in this small town.
Across the road a dog started barking. I worried that he’d picked up my scent. Sweat trickled down my back. The Russians didn’t seem to take notice of the barking. The mutt probably sounded off nightly when it was time for raccoons to dance on his garbage cans.
Finally Alayna said:
“You remember too much of the wrong things in the wrong way, Boyotovich. Be careful. Do you forget that D’Angelo would have ruined everything? Do you forget also that Frank Hovard knew about Carty using Ziagorski to kill D’Angelo and all the other imbeciles who got in our way? Hovard had to be silenced. He was getting lax. So no more Jersey chapter. Good riddance. You could not handle these assignments comrade? Perhaps Chicago too is more than you can handle? Be assured our soldier will be paroled soon. I have influence, don’t forget. Do not worry about him. Natasha, you should remind Peter that it was necessary to throw the police off track—that the entire operation was at risk.”
She paced and stopped under the dim light bulb, hanging crooked from a twisted wire. Her angular haughty face looked almost cartoonish with high arching eyebrows. I doubted she’d ever been someone’s baby. She turned and faced the group and shouted: “We are wasting time that we do not have! Dimitri! Go to the house and see if Anikka has come to. We will try again.”
When I heard Nika’s name I got a sick feeling that tangled up with my shock and anger at having discovered Dad’s killer was Ziagorski. It was too late to exact revenge on Ziggy—but I still had the rest of the rats in my sight. I had to save Nika. Her mother and Boyce must have forced her here against her will. They must have discovered her snooping after my call, maybe when she tried to return the roster. And I hadn’t protected her.
All I could think of was Nika being hurt. Jesus. Lovely Nika who had been through so much pain and tried to understand life and had come up fighting; delicate Nika who didn’t want me to be hurt, who was afraid of going back to the sanatorium; fragile Nika who crumpled under any pressure and who found something in me to hang on to. These animals were squeezing her to see what she knew, and she’d probably told them about the diary and maybe what she’d given me. At least Nika didn’t know about the key. I was a couple of steps ahead of them yet. If they found me and held me, or even if the Queen Bee took my head off, those diamonds would go straight to my office. At least, what they wanted most would be denied them. But I planned on keeping my head attached for a few
more years.
Son you can’t stand there thinking of your own death. That’s the surest way to meet it.
My answers were unspoken: Dad? What do you recommend? I answered without voicing the question. Sure enough I was carrying on a conversation with my dead father—all in my head.
The best thing is to get away. There’s too many of them. I know you want to save the girl, but she’s already in bad shape. If you must then get in the house before they do, and sap the guards before the others know you’re here.
Dad was trying to protect me again. But there’d been trust and innocence in Nika’s face when she’d asked to come along. I blamed myself—maybe I could have protected her if she’d been along. She’d been kicked around all her life. I wasn’t going to let them hurt her any more. She was different now. Maybe I was different too. Something rose in me that was righteous, knowing she was the good one, that after everything I gave a damn again. I had to act. They wanted the diamonds and I had them. What I wanted was Nika to be safe. There was nothing else I cared about. That and plugging the woman who’d ordered Dad’s death.
A tall slim man emerged from the barn and slunk across the open area to the back of the house. When he went in I waited to make sure no one else came out, then followed.
Dark Quarry: A Mike Angel Private Eye Mystery Page 19